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presence. It was fortunate that Tsu’gan was so drunk with pain that he didn’t notice, otherwise, it could have

thrown Iagon’s careful machinations into jeopardy. The bond of trust he had cultivated with his sergeant was

vital; without it, Iagon had nothing.

“You should not be here,” Zo’kar pressed. He had set his iron rod aside and already banished the votive

servitor. “Lord Tsu’gan is very strict about privacy.”

Iagon’s eyes narrowed.

“And has that been impeached, serf?”

“My orders were clear, Astartes. I must inform Lord Tsu’gan of this trespass immediately.” Zo’kar made to

turn but Iagon reached from the darkness and seized him by the shoulder. He felt bone beneath the branderpriest’s

robes and through the parchment-thin skin, and exerted a little pressure — just enough to command

Zo’kar’s attention, but not so excessive that he would cry out.

“Hold…” Iagon used his strength to turn the brander-priest, so he faced him. “I do not think Brother Tsu’gan

is in any condition to hear of this, right now. Allow me to explain it to him.”

Zo’kar shook his head once beneath his cowl.

“I cannot. I obey Lord Tsu’gan. He must be told.”

Iagon fought back a sudden pang of rage, a desire to inflict pain on the insignificant thing in his grasp.

Even as a child, he had been cruel. A dim recollection, obscured further by the fog of his superhuman

rebirth, fluttered like a wisp of smoke at the edge of Iagon’s consciousness. It was a half-buried memory of

staking lizards on the dunes of the Scorian Plain. In the shadow of a rock, he had waited for the scorching

sun to sear the diminutive lizards then watched as the larger draconids came to devour them. Through

determination and cunning, Iagon had passed the trials required to become a Space Marine and been

inducted as neophyte. The dark urges, which back then he did not fully understand, had been channelled

onto the battlefield. With his sharp mind, made sharper by Imperial genetic science, he had advanced,

always keeping the blackest recesses hidden away; far from the probing tendrils of Chaplains and

Apothecaries. Iagon found through this secrecy that he was adept at subterfuge. He coaxed the black spark

within, using his training and his superior intellect to coax it into a flame. It had roared into a dark

conflagration of desire, for power and the means to exact it. No screening process, however rigorous and

invasive, was perfect. Amongst the untold billions of the Imperium, every populace, every creed harboured

the pathological. These aberrations often moved unnoticed, seemingly normal and pious, until the moment

came for their deviancy to surface. But by then of course, it was often too late.

Now, Iagon was the draconid and Zo’kar a lizard staked at his mercy. The Salamander drew closer, using all

of his height and bulk to cower and intimidate. When Iagon spoke again, it was in the breathy cadence of

thinly-veiled threat.

“Are you sure, Zo’kar?”

“More weight.” Ba’ken grunted and relaxed his shoulders. The hefting chains attached to the black exertiamitts

he was wearing went slack. The Salamander’s back was like a slab of onyx, hard and unyielding, as he

slowly lowered the immense weights being hoisted by the chains. He squatted, the legs in his muscles

bunched, sinews like thick cables. Wearing only training fatigues, the musculature of his ebon body was

largely exposed.

Dak’ir smiled wryly. “There is no more, brother,” he said from behind him.

“Then I shall lift you, brother-sergeant. Step upon my shoulders.” Ba’ken’s gaze remained fixed, and Dak’ir

couldn’t be certain that he wasn’t actually serious.

“I shall have to decline, Ba’ken,” Dak’ir replied with mock disappointment, checking the chrono mounted

on the gymnasia’s wall. “Translation in-system is close. We must prepare for planetfall on Scoria.”

Easing the mitts off his immense hands, Ba’ken set them both down with a clunk. “A pity,” he said, getting

to his feet and towelling the sweat off his body. “I shall have to ask the quartermaster for more weight next

time.”

Dak’ir returned the exertia-mitts, akin to massive chunks of smooth-hewn granite, back to the holding

station. All around them warriors of 3rd Company were still training hard.

The gymnasia was a vast space. At one end stood ranks of fighting cages, currently at capacity as battlebrothers

duelled one another or simply recited their close combat weapon disciplines; others took to the

expansive gymnasia floor, which was dark like black granite and filled with all manner of training apparatus.

It possessed an ablutions block, and the darker recesses harboured fire pits where Salamanders could build

their endurance at the mercy of red-hot coals or burning bars of iron.

Dak’ir’s attention was on the ballistica where Ul’shan and Omkar guided their troopers through their

targeting rituals. Lok was not present and the two brother-sergeants had divided the veteran’s squad

members between them for instruction and accuracy assessment. Segregated from the rest of the gymnasia

for obvious reasons, the battle-brothers within the ballistica’s bullet-chipped confines were still visible

through a sheet of transparent armourcrys.

Dak’ir had his back to him when Ba’ken spoke again.

“So, what did you see?”

Prior to his arrival at the gymnasia to guide his squad’s battle-training, Dak’ir had spent several hours in the

one of the strike cruiser’s solitoriums. During meditation, he had experienced another dream. This one was

different to the recurring nightmare of Kadai’s final moments and Dak’ir’s futile efforts to save him. It was

not remembrance that he had imagined in his mind’s theta state, rather it felt more like a vision or even

prophecy. The thought of it chilled him to such an extent that Dak’ir had sought succour from the counsel of

the one Salamander he knew the best and trusted the most.

Bak’en’s face held no trace of suspicion or agenda as Dak’ir faced him. He merely wanted to know. The

bulky Salamander was one of the strongest warriors he knew, but it was his honesty and integrity that Dak’ir

valued most.

“I saw a lizard with two heads prowling in the darkness of a barren sand plain,” said Dak’ir. “It was hunting

and found its prey, a smaller lizard, alone on the dunes. It cornered the smaller creature, swallowing it down

its gullet. Then it slipped away into shadow, until it too was swallowed, but by darkness.”

Ba’ken shrugged.

“It’s just a dream, Dak’ir — nothing more. We all dream.”

“Not like this.”

“You think it portends something deeper?”

“I don’t what it means. I am more concerned with why I am dreaming it at all.”

“Have you spoken to Apothecary Fugis?”

“He knows of it, and until Kadai’s death, had watched me like a dactylid watches prey. Now, it seems, Pyriel

has been appointed my watcher.”

Ba’ken shrugged.

“If it was a concern, Elysius would be your shadow and not our Brother-Librarian, and you’d be having this

conversation with the Brother-Chaplain’s chirurgeon-interrogators.”

His eyes grew warm and earnest.

“Perhaps it was destiny that you found that chest on the Mechanicus ship, perhaps your vision of the twoheaded

lizard was for a reason. I know not, for I don’t believe in such things myself. I know only this: you

are my battle-brother, Dak’ir. Moreover, you are my sergeant. I have fought at your side for four decades

and more. That is the only testament I need to your purity and spirit.”

Dak’ir pretended that his mind was eased.

“You are wise, Ba’ken. Certainly wiser than I,” he said with a humourless smile.

The hefty Salamander merely snorted, rotating his shoulder blades to ease out the stiffness. “No, brothersergeant,

I am just old.”

Dak’ir laughed quietly at that, a sound that smacked of rare, untroubled abandon.

“Gather the troops,” he ordered. “Armoured and on the assembly deck in two hours.”

Already, the other brother-sergeants were bringing their troops into line. Arming serfs were poised and ready

for those who had divested themselves of their battle-plate to train.

“And you will be?” asked Ba’ken.

Dak’ir was pulling on his bodyglove, over which the electrical fibre bundles, interface cables and internal

circuitry of his power armour would be placed and conjoined. “On the bridge.” He ignored Ba’ken’s slight

impertinence by dint of the respect he afforded the heavy weapons trooper. He knew Ba’ken’s inquiry was

an honest one, bereft of any insolence. “I want to speak with the brother-captain before we make planetfall.”

“What happened to the ‘Promethean way’?”

“Nothing. I want to know what he thinks we’ll find down on Scoria and if he believes this mission is the

boon we all hope it is.”

Ba’ken seemed satisfied with the answer and saluted, heading off towards the scalding steam jets of the

ablutions chamber.

Dak’ir donned the rest of his power armour in silence, staring ahead at nothing. When the arming serf was

done, the brother-sergeant thanked him and left the gymnasia. He was determined the long walk to the

bridge would clear his head. The memories of the earlier dream gnawed at him parasitically as he tried to

discern its meaning.

Any introspection was marred by the sudden appearance of Fugis. He had rounded the corner in the same

section of the ship. Dak’ir was reminded again of their exchange outside the Vault of Remembrance in

Hesiod. The melancholy shroud had not left the Apothecary then, it had merely spread.

When Fugis looked up, he gazed through Dak’ir at first and even after that recognition was delayed.

“Are you all right, Brother-Apothecary?” asked Dak’ir, his concern genuine.

“Have you seen Brother-Sergeant Tsu’gan?” Fugis snapped. “He has eluded me since we embarked and I

must speak with him at once.”

Dak’ir was taken aback at the curt tone in the Apothecary’s voice but answered nonetheless. “I last saw him

headed for the solitoriums, but that was almost six hours ago. It’s very unlikely he is still there.”

“I rather think it is highly probable, brother,” Fugis snarled and stalked off, without further word or

explanation, towards the solitoriums.

The Apothecary had always been cold; Dak’ir had regularly been on the receiving end of his innate frigidity,

but never like this. The darkness had beset him now, strangling hope and smothering optimism. Dak’ir had

seen it as they’d surveyed the Pyre Desert. He saw it again as Fugis’ diminishing figure was swallowed by

the shadows of the long corridor.

Dak’ir gave it no further thought for now. He had business on the bridge that was best unfettered by concern

for his grief-stricken Apothecary.

* * *

The blast doors to the bridge parted after a biometric scan ascertained Dak’ir’s presence. A diminishing hiss

of hydraulic pressure escaped into the air as the brother-sergeant passed through the portal to the command

centre of the Vulkan’s Wrath.

The lume-lamps surrounding the bridge were kept low. The semi-dark promoted an atmosphere of

apprehensive silence, in keeping with the gloom. It was always this way when traversing the warp or during

battle. The scant, reddish light hugged the outer walls of the hexagonal chamber, bleeding into penumbral

darkness. Most of the illumination on the bridge came from strategium tables and overhead pict displays that

monitored the ship’s multitudinous systems. The raft of icons upon the various screens was green. It meant

the Geller fields that proofed the ship against the predators of the warp were holding.

A semi-circle of consoles filled the forward arc of the bridge. Like all Astartes vessels, the crew of the

Vulkan’s Wrath was primarily made up of human serfs, ensigns and shipmasters, servitors and tech-savants,

all toiling before the operational controls. Thick shielding had been rolled over the bridge’s view-ports to

protect them, for even to look upon the warp was to be damned by it.

The warp was an immaterial realm, a layer stretched over the real world, akin to an incorporeal sea. Time

moved differently along its waves; portals could be opened in it and routes travelled that allowed ships to

move across great distances comparatively quickly. Its dangers were manifold, though. Abyssal horrors and

soul-hungering entities plied its depths. The warp was insidious, too; it had a way of creeping into a man’s

mind and making him do and see things. Many space-faring vessels had been lost this way, not claimed by

daemons, just destroyed from within.

Despite his arduous psychological training, his gene-bred mental toughness, Dak’ir had felt a prickle of

unease ever since they had entered the immaterium.

He was glad they would be free of it again soon. The warp unsettled him. It tugged at the edge of his

awareness, like cold, thin fingers massaging away his resolve. Throbbing insistently, the half-felt presence of

the warp was like a lost whisper filled with malicious intent. Dak’ir could ignore it well enough but it briefly

cast his thoughts back to the Dragon Warriors, how they had willingly submitted to this other-reality of dark

dreams and darker promises, even embraced it. As a loyal servant of the Emperor, he could not imagine such

a thing, the motivation that had driven them to this desperate act. Nihilan and his renegades were indeed

beyond redemption now. His mind drifted to Stratos and the reason the Dragon Warriors were there.

Vengeance had always seemed a petty motivation for one such as Nihilan; or, rather, it didn’t seem enough

of one.

Dak’ir considered it no further. He had reached the rear of the bridge and was standing at the foot of a

staired platform where Brother-Captain N’keln sat upon his command throne. N’keln’s mood was idle and

restive as he watched his Brother-Librarian guide them by the Emperor’s Light through the vagaries of the

warp. Pyriel was forward of the command throne, on a lower part of the platform. He was encased within a

pseudo-pulpit, standing bolt upright. It was not for the purpose of preaching that he was so ensconced, rat her

his psychic hood was connected integrally to the pulpit’s internal circuitry, augmenting his abilities.

A series of tactical plans and schematics, deep-augur maps, blind-sketched by the ship’s astropaths, were

arranged on a strategio-table to N’keln’s right hand. The captain glanced at them absently, while Brother-

Sergeant Lok, standing beside the command throne, posited potential landing zones and approaches with a

stylus. Evidently, the embarkation plans for Scoria were already in progress. It was all theory until they